Press release

High-ranking
public officials, school administrators and union heads will link
arms at the Somerset Operating Facility on Thursday to urge that a
New York State Public Service Commission ruling that allows
construction of a 1,000-megawatt line from Quebec to New York City be
stopped.

Under
a deal blessed by the PSC, New York City would import electricity
from Hydro-Québec, a state-owned and taxpayer-backed super-monopoly
- entirely at the expense of private-sector power generators in
upstate New York. Hydro-Québec and New York City-based investors
would fund construction of the Champlain Hudson Transmission Line,
which would carry electrical current from the Quebec border, under
Lake Champlain and down the Hudson River to New York City, bypassing
upstate New York-based private power generators like Upstate New York
Power Producers, which operates the Somerset Operating Facility, a
coal power plant in Somerset that is a major local employer and
Niagara County's largest taxpayer.

Other
upstate facilities would also be impacted in Erie, Chautauqua and
Tompkins counties that, together with Somerset, represent an economic
impact of more than $500 million per year in tax payments and direct
and indirect employment.

Local,
state and federal leaders, along with the heads of the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, are expected to call on federal
leaders in Washington to raise awareness to what they call an
ill-conceived plan that hurts New Yorkers and thwart the deal with
the Canadian government power monopoly.

Additionally,
they say allowing the subsidized Quebec power to lower rates in New
York City rather than replacing an old, under-capacity transmission
system and lowering the rates with abundant, less-expensive New
York-made power will potentially derail the replacement of
transmission lines that all New Yorkers depend on.

WHAT:
Generate public outrage and call on federal officials to raise
awareness at the federal level and block a 1,000-megawatt
transmission line that would provide Quebec an outlet for selling
excess government-produced electrical power while bypassing private
producers in New York state.